


exactly what you run from, you end up chasing

by knoxoursavior



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Georgian Period, M/M, Minor Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25374451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knoxoursavior/pseuds/knoxoursavior
Summary: The music stops. The crowd parts. At the door, at the side of the lone Goneril daughter could be no one but the Almyran prince.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	exactly what you run from, you end up chasing

**Author's Note:**

> written for [Sincerity: A Sylvain Gautier Zine](https://twitter.com/sylvainzine)! [here](https://twitter.com/aSeaQuinn/status/1276998956015370243?s=20) is the preview for the accompanying art :) and you can still get a copy of the zine [here](https://twitter.com/sylvainzine/status/1284716991182286848?s=20)!!!

The world is best when it blurs around him, Sylvain has found. He hangs onto Felix’s shoulder and drowns in the bright lights, people flitting around him like sharks around their prey. He hates parties, but having his friends there, suffering along with him makes going to them just a little bit better.

“Rowdier bunch tonight, aren't they?” Sylvain says. Everyone’s puffed up like a goddamned peacock, as if they have anything of substance hiding behind their big dresses and their gold-lined coats.

Ingrid turns to him, lips pursed. Her back remains ramrod straight, even after two glasses of wine. Sylvain doesn’t know how she manages it.

“The Gonerils have a foreign visitor,” she says, voice pitched low for their ears only. “From Almyra, Father says.”

Dimitri tenses beside Sylvain. “An Almyran?” 

Rare to see Almyrans here. The war may have ended over a decade ago, but Fódlan’s relationship with them isn’t exactly friendly. No one has forgotten the dead yet, nor the hands that killed them.

“Yes, from Almyra.” Ingrid sighs. “Rumors have spread in town that he’s a prince there. Or an Almyran lord, at the very least. No one is quite sure, but they’ve been mooning over him nonetheless.”

“And why did Lord Galatea feel the need to tell you such gossip?” Felix asks, and—ah. Well.

Lord Galatea is just like any other father of a young woman in her prime age for marriage, after all. Ingrid knows this more than anyone else, and punches Felix’s side for it. She crosses her arms over her chest. “Any man is acceptable as long as he has money, I suppose.”

Sylvain wonders how this Almyran prince will fare among these leeches. The Gonerils are good people, yes, but Sylvain would be hard-pressed to say the same of half the people in this room.

“A new bachelor to hook their claws into.” Sylvain laughs. “At least it isn’t me. Perhaps I should thank him.”

Then, the music stops. The crowd parts. At the door, at the side of the lone Goneril daughter could be no one but the Almyran prince. Tall and sun-kissed, a stark contrast to Hilda’s fair skin and pale hair.

He hasn’t even bothered to dress like the men of Fódlan. Instead, he’s dressed in a silk tunic and silk pants, in shades of yellow and brown that sit over his shoulders in a way that makes Sylvain’s breath catch. His clothes are loose, but not shapeless. Fabric bunches at his waist, making it look as small as a woman’s. As if Sylvain could hold all of him with only one arm.

“Oh,” Dimitri breathes, and Sylvain agrees. He is, for the lack of a better word, beautiful. It’s a fact that the rest of the party-goers do not miss, and judging by the prince’s smile, he knows it to be true as well.

Interesting.

The prince raises a hand, waves. “As you were,” he says, and just like that, the party resumes at his will. But eyes do not leave him, and the whispers are only drowned out by the music. Hilda’s hand hangs onto his elbow, and Sylvain would wonder if there was anything to it were he not already aware of Hilda’s engagement.

“Well,” Sylvain says, “you certainly could do worse than him, Ingrid.”

Ingrid rolls her eyes, which he’s sure Lord Galatea would chastise her for if he’d caught her doing it. _Unladylike,_ he’d call it.

“And I certainly do not care, Sylvain,” she says, and it sparks something in Sylvain’s gut, gives a knife-sharp edge to his smile. Ingrid might not care, but she’s the exception to the rule; she always has been. Every other girl in this party would fall on their knees at this Almyran prince’s feet tonight, begging for his attention, but Sylvain doesn’t want to see it, doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction.

Sylvain downs the rest of his wine in one go and hands off his empty glass to a grumbling Felix.

“I do, though,” he says. He loosens the topmost button of his shirt, runs a hand through his hair, takes off his coat for good measure. Sylvain knows how he looks, face flushed and lips stained red from the wine, and he knows how people react to him. “I think he deserves a warm welcome from us, don’t you?”

“Oh no, Sylvain,” Felix says, deadpan. “You’ll embarrass us. He’ll never come back.”

Sylvain elbows him, makes sure it hurts even though he knows Felix will find some way to make him pay for it. He pushes off the wall he’s been leaning against, and ignores his friends’ whispers behind him as he makes his way towards Hilda and her new friend.

He’s halfway there when he feels a hand close around his arm.

“Sylvain, wait.”

Sylain turns and finds Dimitri, eyebrows knit together. His hair is sticking to his forehead, so Sylvain pushes the strands aside. It doesn’t make him look any decent, but perhaps that will do Dimitri some good. “What is it?”

“Well,” Dimitri says, “I believe what Ingrid said was that I need to make sure you don’t offend possible royalty.”

Sylvain raises an eyebrow. “Did she?”

Ingrid has been his friend for almost his entire life. She should know by now that putting him under supervision only makes him want to act out even more.

“Well, you have nothing to worry about,” he assures Dimitri, turning right back and continuing on his path towards Hilda and her companion.

“Sylvain!”

Dimitri chases after him once again, and Sylvain doesn’t need to turn and glance at him to know what he looks like. Droopy and sad like a sunflower at the darkest hour of the night.

Dimitri has always been the brightest of them four, even after the war. He is good-natured, bighearted, prone to selflessness and kindness. It made him very easy to drag along on adventures when they were children, made him very easy to lean on during the war, made him very easy to love no matter what was going on in their lives. Even now, after the war, he remains the best of them. It’s the most absurd thing that Sylvain cannot wrap his head around until now, and so he accepts it as fact.

He slows down, lets Dimitri catch up to him.

“Thank you,” Dimitri says.

Sylvain wraps an arm around his shoulders. “You know, you should really stop doing whatever Ingrid tells you to do.”

“She means well,” Dimitri defends, which Sylvain scoffs at. Then, “I just want to meet the prince, alright? That’s why I’m coming with you.”

He’s still pursing his lips though, which usually means he disapproves of Sylvain’s behavior. There is a pang in Sylvain’s chest; Dimitri’s disapproval is rare and hard-hitting because it is only ever meant with the best of intentions. But then again, when has Sylvain ever let anyone’s disapproval dictate his actions?

He lets his lips widen into a smile when they reach Hilda and her prince. They’re in the middle of a conversation with Lorenz Gloucester, who is as stuck up as a lord could be, so Sylvain has no compunctions interrupting them.

“Miss Goneril, looking as beautiful as ever,” he says, voice booming, drowning out the rest of Lorenz’s sentence.

“And you’re looking even sloppier than usual, Sylvain,” Hilda says, which Sylvain takes in good humor. Hilda is one of the better ones after all, and were she not already engaged, Sylvain might have made a move on her sooner or later.

She holds out a hand that Sylvain takes and brings up to his lips. She smells of roses and sugar, as sweet as she looks.

“Miss Goneril, how do you do?” Dimitri asks, and he isn’t quite so forward as to kiss her hand, but he bows like the good lord that he is.

“Just fine,” Hilda answers. “Better now that you’ve come to greet me.”

Hilda has always favored naive, wide-eyed men she could wrap around her finger, and Dimitri has always been gullible enough to fit her tastes.

“Oh, but as much as I’d like to think you’re here to ask after little old me, I’m sure that’s not the case.”

Hilda nudges her friend forward by his elbow, and only then does Sylvain look up at him. Up close, he’s even more beautiful. Skin that looks as soft as the silk that he’s wearing, lips a shade of red that Sylvain’s sure can be nothing but painted on. But his smile is familiar, and Sylvain recognizes a kindred spirit in the curve of it.

Well. No one better to spend the night flirting with than someone who hates being here as much as he does.

“I’m Sylvain. May I know the name of the handsome gentleman who has graced us with his presence tonight?” he says, but Sylvain should have known better than to think that someone too similar to him wouldn’t give him any trouble.

“Handsome, you say? Shouldn’t you be asking your friend?”

“I—pardon?”

The prince doesn’t even spare him anything more than a glance before he’s stepping forward, taking Dimitri’s hand in his as he sinks onto one knee. He doesn’t kiss it like Sylvain did with Hilda, and yet Dimitri flushes at the attention.

“May I know the name of the handsome gentleman who has graced me with his presence tonight?” he says. A mockery of Sylvain’s words. That he’s using Dimitri to prove some kind of point strikes a nerve.

“Please get up,” Dimitri says. He closes his other hand around the prince’s and pulls, but the prince remains where he is, smiling. “Please, a prince shouldn’t kneel for someone like me.”

A laugh, and then—

“A prince! Is that really what you’ve been telling everyone, Hilda?”

“Well, you are a prince!“ Hilda says.

“Technically, yes, but I hardly count,” he says, shaking his head. His smile does not waver; his smile does not reach his eyes. He looks up at Dimitri, the picture of nonchalance. “I’m an illegitimate son of the king, I’m afraid. A prince who has no chance of ascending the throne is hardly a prince at all.”

Dimitri has always blushed so visibly. Sylvain loves the fact; it makes him so fun to tease after all. Seeing it now, though, knowing who has brought it about—there is irritation unfurling in Sylvain's stomach, hot and cloying.

“You’re still a prince, no matter the circumstances of your birth. Please get up, your Highness,” Dimitri says, and this time, the prince listens. He stands up when Dimitri pulls at their clasped hands, and doesn’t let go even when they’re eye-to-eye.

“Not even the people of Almyra refer to me by your Highness. Call me Claude; flows off the tongue a little better, I think.”

“Claude, then.”

Sylvain knows interest when he sees it, and Claude is definitely interested. Even more so apparent is Dimitri’s interest. It’s there in Dimitri’s parted lips. His eyes, widened so slightly. His chest, held still like his breath.

Sylvain will never hear the end of it from Ingrid if he lets Dimitri throw his heart away at some stranger, and he wouldn’t forgive himself either.

“We’ve all met each other. Great! I think it’s about time to dance, isn’t it, Hilda?” he says.

“Sylvain, what—” Dimitri starts, but Sylvain wraps an arm around Dimitri’s shoulders and leads him away. Dimitri sighs, turns around to say goodbye to Claude and Hilda, because being the nicest of their group of friends has always meant that he’s the first to admit defeat.

Sylvain should feel guilty about it, but he feels nothing but satisfaction when he turns and glares at Claude. That Claude isn’t looking at him at all and only smiling back at Dimitri is a little disappointing, but unimportant.

Surprisingly, Hilda does call everyone’s attention and announce a dance, asking everyone who wants to participate to come to the center of the room. Sylvain really should send her some flowers in appreciation of her willingness to cover up for his obvious schemes. Her fiancé would understand; she covers up for his schemes more times than anyone could count after all.

Sylvain likes dancing. He likes the theater of it, the push and pull. He doesn’t like it when he’s forced to dance with someone he doesn’t like, or someone who knows of his father’s wealth, which he supposes is one and the same. But Dimitri is neither of those. After all, Dimitri knows of much, much more than just his father’s money, and even then, Dimitri probably has more money to his name than Sylvain does.

Sylvain pulls at Dimitri until they’re standing across from each other as the sound of shuffling feet and soft murmurs fill the room. Dimitri does not meet his eyes, but Sylvain does not let the fact stop him. When the music starts, a fluttering note of the violin, he reaches for Dimitri, and Dimitri reaches back.

His grip on Dimitri's hand as they spin is unyielding, accusing.

“You like him.”

Dimitri finally lifts his eyes up to meet Sylvain's, only to glare at him.

“He's very nice,” Dimitri says. He has never been a good liar; he's learned years ago that he's better off defending himself than denying anything. It makes him a very good friend to have, and a very amusing one to tease.

Sylvain laughs as they part, only to step into each other’s space once again.

“Right. The same way I’m a very nice boy and the perfect example of a proper lord.”

“Stop it. You are a nice boy, and he seems like he is one as well.” Sylvain would disagree on both points, but Dimitri isn't done. “I don't understand why you had to antagonize him; you wanted to meet him just as much as I did.”

Sylvain wasn’t quite sure either. He came into the situation expecting something very different. More of Claude’s attention for himself—perhaps at the start, that was the only reason. But mostly, it was about Dimitri. It is about Dimitri, who has suffered the most out of all of them but still remains the kindest.

“He was flirting with you,” he says, as if those few words could bear the weight of Sylvain’s every concern. 

“No, he wasn't,” Dimitri denies. The music crescendos; they part, except for their hands, still clasped, and they stand side by side. Perhaps the fact that Sylvain isn’t looking at him is reason enough for Dimitri to reconsider, because then he amends, “Well, I suppose he was, a little, but it was harmless. Like how you flirt with everyone that moves.”

And perhaps that is true. They are similar after all. Perhaps Claude really is just too much like Sylvain. Perhaps Claude is just a terrible flirt and a terrible prince, and not a terrible person, but there is too much at risk.

Claude will be gone soon enough anyway. There’s no reason for an Almyran prince to stay in Fódlan. None that Sylvain can think of, anyway.

“I don't trust him,” Sylvain says.

Dimitri’s hand clenches around his, and when Sylvain turns to him, he sees the look in Dimitri’s eyes, as soft as the curve of his smile.

“I can handle myself just fine, Sylvain,” he says, and Sylvain believes him.

Dimitri has gotten himself through grief and adversity. He is endlessly kind, but he has also built himself up with steel. He handles everything his family has left him with only very little help from Felix’s family. He sleeps alone in his parents’ old room at night, and he would do everything else in his life alone too, if it weren’t for his friends.

Sylvain envies his strength.

“You don’t have to handle everything by yourself,” Sylvain says, and the words are familiar. Like the night Dimitri finally came to them, crying for the first time since news came of his parents’ deaths. They taste like salt, like carefully constructed recovery.

The music stops. They end up standing across each other, like they did at the start, but now Dimitri meets his gaze head on.

“I suppose you want to dance with your prince now.”

Dimitri almost smiles, he thinks.

“If he asks me, yes.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Sylvain says, for there Claude is, walking through the crowd towards them. Sylvain has no doubt what he intends to do, and he steps away, gives him the space for it.

There’s an odd feeling that lodges itself in his throat as he watches Claude take Dimitri’s hand. He can hear Claude asking Dimitri to dance, can see the flush high on Dimitri’s cheeks as he stutters out his reply. And then, a smile.

Dimitri’s smiles are rare these days. Sylvain remembers when it took barely anything to coax one out of him. A flower picked on the way to his house, a pat on the back, a simple hello. Dimitri was a well of brilliance from which Sylvain had drawn his own life, until he wasn’t.

That curve of Dimitri’s lips—it’s tentative and slight, but it is a smile nonetheless, and it makes Dimitri the most beautiful sight out of everyone and everything in this room.

Perhaps Sylvain could place a little trust in Claude, if he’s able to make Dimitri smile like that.

“Sylvain, Claude has asked me to dance.”

A hand around his elbow, warm.

“Didn’t I tell you that he would?” Sylvain says. He places his hand on Dimitri’s and smiles. “Make sure to come introduce him to Felix and Ingrid, alright?”

Dimitri nods, and there’s that lovely curl to his lips again, now directed at Sylvain.

“I will, if he seems like he could survive their judgment.”

Sylvain nods.

“I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/singeiji)!


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